A Formula 1 budget cap would suit us, says Williams
By Dieter Rencken, Lawrence Barretto @RacingLines , @lawrobarretto Published on Monday February 13th 2017
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... --williams
Claire Williams believes the introduction of a budget cap in Formula 1 would suit her team because of the efficient way it already uses its modest funds.
Budget caps were considered by then-FIA president Max Mosley as a way of attracting new F1 teams for the 2010 season, but the idea never ultimately got off the ground.
The notion has come and gone from the agenda since but last month, new McLaren executive director Zak Brown came out in favour of the concept and Williams believes it would also suit her operation.
The subject is set to be on the agenda in the coming months as F1's new owner Liberty Media looks at ways of distributing funding to teams more equitably.
While Ferrari has a budget of around £330million, Williams operates on around £105million.
"Liberty have talked about trying to bring distribution of income to a much more equitable level in order to make sure we have a sport that thrives and is sustainable into the future," said deputy team principal Williams at the recent SPOBIS summit in Germany.
"Williams is an independent team and our budget's around the mid-point among other teams in our sport.
"For us in the middle, it gives us quite an exciting future because if they do bring about a more equitable distribution of income, obviously we will benefit from that.
"We are a team that is able to thrive at that mid-range whereas bigger teams might have to compress what they do, maybe make people redundant if they put a cap on the number of employees or put a cap on spending through budget caps.
"So we're looking forward to getting round the table and having those competitions."\
One key change Liberty has already made is appointing Chase Carey as chief executive of F1 and moving Bernie Ecclestone to an honorary role as chairman emeritus.
Williams praised Ecclestone for his work during a 40-year-reign at the helm of F1.
"We were waiting to see if Ecclestone would retain a place around that table with Liberty and it transpires he won't be involved on a day-to-day basis," she said.
"He's been given the title chairman emeritus, so we'll have to see what that means.
"F1 is what it is today because of the work of Bernie.
"He has done some phenomenal things to transform this sport into what it is today.
"It has an audience that outstrips so many other sports around the world and generates hundreds of millions in sponsorship over the course of one season.
"No one should take that away from Bernie."
